spiderwebs
by aubergineribbon
Summary: He says it’s because she needed to sober up, she thinks its a cunning revenge plan.


A/N: This takes place S02 E10, and events have been twisted to fit my new version. Serena's with Aaron, Jenny is now back home and Cyprus has moved in. Blair and Chuck are on their little break thing, Bart is still alive and Nate is being mopey and is neither with Jenny or Vanessa. This takes place in an interlude before all the other shiz that is the second half of the season.

* * *

It's a split second moment for Dan. Half a heartbeat, the whisper of lashes brushing against cheek in a blink, a sharp intake of breath. Nothing of consequence can happen in such a short time, and yet, somehow, he finds his life altered. It's only barely less than a moment; it's only a slight tilt of her head, a gentle furrowing of her brow.

It's dark where they walk, the street light throwing out uneven shadows into the night and he can only hear the crunch of their footsteps on the leaves and concrete but he sees her, well, for lack of a better word, he thinks he sees her understanding, and it throws him wildly off balance.

Because of all the people he knows in the world, Blair Waldorf is the last person ever he thought would empathise with him.

Strike that, Blair Waldorf is the last person who he would want to empathise with him. But she does, he realises, and it changes everything he ever knew and wanted and thought.

...

She hadn't even wanted to go out tonight. She wanted to stay home and slouch in her oldest and softest pyjamas (her first nightdress actually, one that her mother had made for her, an Alice blue silk and lace gown that smelt faintly of perfume and comfort). She wanted to stay home so she could wallow in the soft glow of Audrey Hepburn's image on screen. She wanted to stay home so that she could relax with Dorota, and possibly Serena, and forget about her life, her huge failure of a life.

Unfortunately, this was one of those (few and far between) instances when Blair doesn't get what she wants. So while she now looks utterly stunning in heels that would make a lesser woman simultaneously wince in sympathetic pain and sigh with envy, she's also in a club that has oh so loud pounding music, a distinctively sweet, sweaty aroma and lights that spin and flash and that are quite frankly beginning to annoy her.

To make a bad situation even worse, she thinks that she's just as unimpressed as the we-love-Brooklyn duo that are currently standing to the left of her with pained, pinched expressions on their faces. God.

Sometimes, just sometimes, she wishes that S didn't smile and laugh and light up her world so she could just say no to those big blue eyes.

But she can't. So she's here. And she's downing her fifth straight Cosmopolitan (secretly, Blair loves Carrie and her friends and their life) while reaching for her sixth and the room is just starting to spin, just enough so there's two of Vanessa (and Blair can't even imagine what she's done to deserve such a fate). And Vanessa is talking Serena and they ask her something but she can't hear (this music is so freaking loud and ghetto, and she hates it just a little bit) so she shakes her head and smiles and then it's just her and Cabbage Patch and wow, that's awkward and she's wondering just how that happened when a tall, dark and definitely-unattractive man falls against her in a drunken stupor.

So she stumbles, and her ankle twists in her heel and from that height gosh that hurts and she spins and she can't seem to right herself and she's falling down, she thinks, or maybe she's falling up, but there's just so much spiralling and whirling and dark mixed with lights flashing she can't really tell and exactly how did Blair manage to be the undignified one here out of everyone present?

And then someone catches her and is helping her stand and is moving her out, away from the heat and the bodies and thank god away from the smell and Blair is out in the cold New York winter air that seems to just slap her in the face. And she can't remember ever being so thankful to be outside of a club, outside of the attention and the centre, so she turns to thank her white knight and then she sees its Dan.

Daniel Humphrey just saved her from a broken ankle, heel and reputation. God, how she hates him.

They stand that way for a brief pause, autumn leaves dangling in the frozen air, him with his arm around her waist supporting her body and her with her eyes blurrily trying to make his form out clearly. She clears her throat.

"Thanks." It's neither contrite nor sincere, but it's more than he's ever got from her so he'll take it.

"That's okay." There's another pause, this one slightly longer and more uncomfortable. She really can't stand now, her ankles trembling under the stress of alcohol and height and its cold and her head hurts and she just wants to sit down, like, right now. So she does.

Or she tries to. But she forgot that Dan was holding her up, so he now takes all of her dead weight (which really wasn't all that much) and it surprises him, she assumes, so he nearly drops her. He's saying something ridiculous like whoopsidaisies while trying to pull her back up an drag her forwards, and my god, she thinks, no one says whoopsidaisies unless they're little girls with blonde ringlets and even then, maybe not, and she wants to laugh.

But she is suddenly sitting down (on his jacket, which she supposes is quite nice of him, this dress is Marc Jacobs and she would have had to kill him if it got a smudge on it) and he's sitting next to her and its Blair Waldorf and Dan Humphrey sitting together on a front step of a brownstone at 1am in the morning and she wonders how her life ended up like this.

...

At this stage, Dan's life is still unassuming and unchanged, the great epiphany is minutes away but he doesn't know it, and all he can think is I am going to kill Serena, I swear.

It's freaking cold and he's stuck in the UES with his ex-girlfriends' best friend who can't figuratively stand him, and truthfully, he's not too fond of her either and did he mention she's so drunk she literally can't stand without him? Dan briefly wonders what his life would be like if he weren't such a nice guy and didn't feel quite so responsible at this moment for this girl whose cutting wit and intelligence is now rendered useless by such a tiny, ineffectual alcohol tolerance, before wincing as Blair leans to the other side and pukes up a whole lot of pink.

He has to grasp her forearm to prevent her from falling over the side of the steps along with her stomach contents and he holds her back as she continues to heave and dry retch on an ornate, expensive looking tree. She finally stops and slumps back against him, her small body shuddering as she presses her hand to her mouth.

And he thinks that he should say something to her, they've been gone from the club for a while now, he thinks Serena will be worried about Blair, so when she pulls away from him slightly to support herself on the door behind them, he turns to face her.

She must have seen him open his mouth because she beats him to it.

"What?" She snaps irritably, like it's his fault she's drunk and disorderly and reminiscent of the oft-mentioned Old Serena. And it's just her tone, that same tone as always, even though all he's done is help her that puts him on edge.

"Nothing. I just, I was just wondering if you wanted to go back to the club now or..."

But she's throwing his this exasperated look, like, oh my god, Brooklyn, and she's interrupting him and saying something and then he's saying something back and then she's screaming something at him and he's standing up, pushing away from the steps and whoops, Blair can't support herself, even with the help of a door, and she topples forward and just like before, Dan has to catch her.

Except now, mixed in with her signature scent, a perfume that even he is forced to recognise, and the soft tendrils of her cooling sweat he can smell the bitterness of vomit and alcohol and smoke and it doesn't seem to suit her, not really. He places her upright again, and she just looks at him, her long dark hair falling forward and her eyes unfocused and she whispers to him.

"I just wanted to stay home tonight." And he's thinking, well, why the hell didn't you and she's answering him with a patented roll of her eyes and she's gearing up for a reply and did he just say that out loud?

"Same reason you came out. Serena. You do know that she has a boyfriend, right? You do know that it's not you anymore, don't you?" Her doe eyes are narrowing and she glaring at him and he can't breathe. "Because all this pining and following... You're like a kicked puppy. It's demeaning, even for you, Humphrey."

Dan reflects that even drunk Blair manages to coldly and calculatedly hit him exactly where it hurts. But it's late and he has better thing to be doing then wasting his time with Blair, and he stands, again, and looks down at her.

"You know what? I don't need this! I'm going home, to my family who actually give a damn about me, and good luck finding anyone who actually wants to help you back to your place because I'm quite sure that no one gives a damn about you. Have a nice night, Blair."

And he knows it's not his best material, he knows that he shouldn't leave her, but he's had enough and Mr Nice Guy is striding away, breath coming out in short, cloudy bursts in front of his face.

And he makes it the entire way to the end of the block before seeing a bunch of not-so-nice-guys stumbling towards where he left the young Miss Waldorf, and then he's running back to her, sliding over the pavement, cursing the day when he decided to answer the call tonight from Serena.

She's still there, like she's waiting for him, which makes him angry, because he could have left her there, dammit, he could have, but her face is drawn and different somehow and she just looks at him and he sighs.

...

Its way past her bedtime now and Blair is cold, but she's thinking that Dan must be freezing because she's now wearing his jacket as they stumble towards her penthouse, and he's just in a button down shirt and jeans and she actually feels kind of guilty about this (not enough to take off the jacket, are you insane, but enough to make her edgy).

Dan had called Serena, called her and explained where they were. And then he had told her that he was taking Blair home, and then leaving himself and did she mind and she was all like no, of course not, I'm so sorry, thank you so much Dan, and he was all broody as they started to walk (he says it's because she needed to sober up, she thinks is a cunning revenge plan) and Blair thought she was going to throw up again.

They haven't talked in a while, and her feet are starting to feel numb, and she needs something, anything, to take her mind away from the pain, so she starts a conversation.

"So why did you come out tonight anyway, Humphrey? Nothing at home to complain about?" And yes, not her best initiation, but that guilt is niggling at her, so she decides to take the offensive. And she's tired, so give her a break, honestly. And Dan stiffens, she can feel him tense as she leans against him and he holds her up as they walk and she feels another small (very small) stab of regret.

And she thinks he's not going to answer, and she's resigned herself to reciting the periodic table of elements backwards internally to take her mind away from her feet and her head and the swaying footpath when he exhales and replies.

"I don't know. You know Serena." What he means is, you know Serena like I do and you know that she makes everything seem like something you want to try. "She really wanted us all to hang out tonight. And not that I can expect you to understand, but I wanted to forget for a little bit. I just... I mean, with school, and Jenny and Serena... I just wanted to have some fun. Not be Dan Humphrey." And he trails off and they're walking in silence again.

And Blair feels something akin to shock, because is this exactly the reasoning she used to convince herself to come out. Maybe it's because she's drunk (sobering up a relatively large amount, but still at that stage where she's not quite sure if she could walk a straight line), maybe it's because it's just the two of them for about the first time she can remember or maybe it's because he's one of the only people she knows who came back for her (even if she's pretty sure she's going to discount it, because, she reasons, its Dan. He couldn't have left Georgina on that step at this time of night) but she's opening her mouth and

"Sometimes I don't want to be Blair Waldorf. Sometimes I want to just forget who I am and what I've done and imagine what could have happened if I were more... more, I don't know, more not me. If I were brave enough to actually tell Serena that I missed her when she left, or to tell my dad that I didn't want him to go or, or... god. Why am I even telling _you_ this?"

She stutters to a halt, her words running dry as she reveals more to this boy from, ew, Brooklyn than she had to her best friend in a long while.

...

That was the moment.

And this is when Dan doesn't even notice them stop outside the front of Blair's apartment building because he's too struck dumb by her admission. It's late, but it's New York, so he can hear the distant chatter of cars and conversations and can see people hurrying along in the dark, trying to get home, he assumes, but he's not really caring about his city at the moment.

They look at each other for a moment, Blair's gaze slightly unfocused, and Dan opens his mouth to say something when the lobby door is wrenched open and that Polish maid of Blair's is hurrying out, exclaiming in, well, Polish he thinks, running up to Blair and hugging her tightly and rubbing her arms brushing her hair back.

He's kind of glad that she's arrived now, because he's not sure what he would have said, and Dan knows he doesn't exactly have the best track record of speaking coherently when put on the spot.

And she turns to him and hugs him, which is up there on the list of weird things that Dan Humphrey never expected to happen to him, like, ever, and then she's showing him a town car he didn't see idling by the curb and he leaves with not even a word from his adversary-who-he-now-thinks-might-not-be-that-bad.

They just exchange a glance as he ducks to slide into the back seat, and as he's chauffeured home in the dead of the night, the lights from the streets blinking in and out of the leather interior, he thinks he might just be too tired to process what happened just then.

So he falls onto his football sheets and dreams of clouds in his coffee and shoes and ships and sealing wax, and anything other than the girl sprawled on silk just a borough away. He sleeps, and maybe he'll wake up and feel like nothing has changed, but it has, it has, because his spider web of experiences is entwined with hers now.

And that's not going away.


End file.
